No, They Don’t Wash Off

The Truth about Chemicals in Your Food

chemicals used in food

This month, I began a short series on toxic buildup in the body and how to detox your body safely and effectively. In my last post, I explained just a bit about the different types of toxins we encounter and how a buildup of these toxins negatively affects our entire bodies.

In the next few posts, I’ll be going into more detail about the different types of toxins that are damaging our bodies, where we’re getting those toxins and what each of them does to our health. Today, I want to focus on the toxins that are in our food, as this is one of the biggest health hazards we face on a daily basis. We get more toxins through our food than from almost everywhere else combined, yet we still have to eat.

chemicals used in food

The Different Types of Toxins in Our Food

By now, everyone knows that herbicides and pesticides in our foods are a huge problem. However, they’re not the only type of toxin we’re eating and drinking.

Almost every commercially-raised meat or poultry is pumped full of antibiotics and growth hormones, in addition to being fed commercial feeds that are loaded with the same pesticides and herbicides in our produce. Even some “free-range” meats are raised on “range” that might be “free” but is routinely sprayed with chemicals.

Not only is the food we’re eating loaded with toxic chemicals, but so are the packages they come in. We’ve all heard about how important it is to drink from water bottles that are BPA-free, but did you know that BPA is in the lining of virtually every can in the supermarket, including the organic canned goods?

Then we have the “regular” ingredients in many of our foods, such as preservatives, stabilizers, artificial sweeteners, artificial colorants, genetically-modified grains and legumes, trans-fats and more.

I know I may sound like an alarmist to some of you, but if you read the studies mentioned in my last post or do any amount of research on your own, you’ll know that I am not playing the part of Chicken Little. Our commercial food supply has become a toxic wasteland.

How These Toxins Affect Our Bodies

We hear so much about chemicals and toxins in our food supply that it’s easy to just lump them all into a group of things that “are bad for us.” But each of these toxins has very specific effects on our bodies and those effects are deeper than you might realize.

Pesticides and Herbicides

There are numerous pesticides and herbicides that are used to raise produce and to feed the livestock animals we eat. One of the truly scary things about these chemicals is that they’re much stronger and much more toxic than the chemicals used just twenty years ago.

When pesticides and herbicides are used on insects and weeds, the next generation of those insects and plants is more resistant to the chemicals than the previous generation. Eventually, they become immune or very close to it and the chemicals are no longer effective. This has caused the chemical companies to create more powerful and more dangerous treatments.

These pesticides and herbicides have been shown to be incredibly dangerous to humans. Some of them are known carcinogens. Others damage our hormones and even mimic hormones such as estrogen, which has been shown to cause infertility in both men and women.

Antibiotics

chemicals used in food

Virtually every animal that is commercially raised for food is treated with antibiotics. Steers raised for beef and cows raised on commercial dairy farms are loaded up with antibiotics because of their diet. Corn is the cheapest feed available to commercial livestock operations so that’s the main ingredient in these animal’s diets. Unfortunately, cows can’t actually digest corn.

Because of their multiple stomachs, corn is exposed to too much digestive fluid for too long and it ferments before cows can digest the nutrients or excrete the waste. The result is that their stomachs can literally explode from being fed corn, yet commercial growers feed it to them anyway. They work around this problem by feeding them antibiotics.

Farm-raised fish are fed antibiotics because of the condition under which they’re raised and their own unnatural diets. Chickens raised in big poultry operations get so little fresh air and are injured so often in their tightly packed quarters that they, too, are fed a regular diet of antibiotics.

So what happens when we eat the beef, pork, chickens, eggs and fish being fed all these antibiotics? Well, unfortunately, we eat the antibiotics, too. This is one of the reasons that our immune systems are so compromised. You probably already know that taking a round of antibiotics prescribed by your doctor will suppress your immune system. Antibiotics don’t just kill bad bacteria; they kill all bacteria, including the good bacteria in your digestive tract. Those beneficial bacteria are essential to your immune system. They prevent an imbalance between bad and good bacteria that can completely wreck your digestive system. This is why probiotics are such a popular supplement. Ironically, the same food conglomerates that sell meat and dairy laced with antibiotics are also selling the “probiotic” yogurt that’s supposed to correct the problem!

By upsetting the balance of good and bad bacteria in your digestive tract, antibiotics in your food lead to a build-up of all kinds of parasites and germs that prevent your body from absorbing the nutrients in your food. This leads not only to malnutrition and vitamin deficiency, but also to compromised immunity. Some of the most powerful weapons in your immune system are the vitamins and antioxidants in your food. If you can’t absorb them properly because your digestive tract is damaged, then your immune system is unable to repair muscle tissue, heal injuries or protect you from the latest virus going around. What happens then? Yep, your doctor gives you some antibiotics.

Hormones

Hormones are another very scary problem courtesy of the commercial livestock industry. Various hormones are fed to meat animals, including Human Growth Hormone, to help them grow at a much faster rate than is natural. Dairy animals are fed hormones to increase milk production and keep it going much longer than it would naturally.

These hormones are known to wreak havoc on our own hormones, on our endocrine systems and those of our children. They stunt muscle growth in both boys and men. They can delay puberty in boys and speed it up in girls. Just twenty years ago the average age for girls beginning puberty was twelve. Now it’s nine or ten. On the other hand, boys typically started puberty around the age of twelve now it’s not uncommon for male puberty to be delayed until the age of fourteen.

These hormones are even known through several respected research studies to cause fertility issues in both men and women.

chemicals used in food

All The Other Junk

In addition to these top three, we still have additives, stabilizers, artificial sweeteners, genetically-modified grains and a host of other chemicals and toxins to contend with. Almost all of these are found in processed foods. What makes matters worse is that most processed foods also contain trans-fats. You already know that trans-fats cause heart disease, obesity and a number of other health problems, but they also work in conjunction with all of the toxins that we’ve been talking about.

Trans-fats pretty much go straight to your fat tissue because they’re so hard to digest. If your digestive system is compromised, you’re going to store even more trans-fats and create more and more fat cells. All of these toxins we’ve been talking about bind with trans-fats and are stored in that fatty tissue as well.

So now you have a digestive system that can’t digest properly because it’s loaded with toxins and too low in nutrients and good bacteria. You have fat cells that are loaded with toxins, too, but you can’t lose that fat because your digestive system and hormones are all out of whack. It’s a vicious cycle.

Eventually, your immune system becomes compromised because of the toxins in your body and the lack of nutrients absorbed in your digestive tract. You’re overweight, you keep gaining fat even when you diet, you’re fatigued, you’re moody, you’ve lost your libido and you catch every cold and flu that comes to town. Not only that, but your compromised immune system has now led to systemic inflammation, which is inflammation that affects your entire body. This can lead to everything from obesity to heart disease to arthritis to fibromyalgia.

I know this is a lot of information and I also know that it probably sounds like I think every food manufacturer is evil and we shouldn’t eat anything we didn’t raise ourselves. This isn’t true. While I think some food companies turn a blind eye to the health problems they create, I don’t consider them evil masterminds out to kill all of their customers. I also know that while growing your own food is a wonderful thing, it’s not really an option for many people.

What I believe is that we need to choose our foods very carefully and we do need to detox our bodies naturally and safely on a regular basis to keep toxic buildup from affecting our health.

I know I’ve risked sounding like an alarmist, but I can’t help you to get a lean, strong, fantastic body without addressing these issues and showing you how to correct them. I also don’t want you to fall prey to all of the detox scams that are out there now because of these toxic-laden foods.

I’m okay with coming across as an extremist if that means you become more aware of the problems of toxic buildup!

If you are thinking what I am thinking, you are thinking…. “Oh man, I need to do a detox!”

I’ve got you covered! My good friend, Yuri has a great detox program that is the best out there! Check it out Here!

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